Sunglasses at Night (Claws Clause Book 3) Page 5

  Those gentle feelings? They turned into a raging hard-on that made it difficult for him to keep up with her.

  And then, almost as if she were teasing, she called over, “What’s wrong, champ? Can’t keep up?” and Adam’s jaw nearly dropped.

  Was this the same woman he had to rescue from the Nightwalker attacking her?

  His throbbing cock assured him that: Yes. Yes, it was.

  “It is for now,” she said, answering his question. “It’s a rental, though, since I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying in Grayson. Just moved in the other day, actually.”

  As she looked around the neatly decorated room with him, he could hear her snapping her bubblegum between her back molars.

  During their walk across town, he watched as she cheerily popped a piece of gum in her mouth. Then, as if it didn’t bother her one way or another that he was a Nightwalker, she offered him a piece of his own. Tabitha shrugged when he stammered out a quick, No, thanks, before amusing herself by blowing bubbles.

  She really went to town on the chewing gum. It shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was. He often thought the habit was like a cow chewing cud. He had a fellow beat cop who used to chomp away on the stuff and it drove him nuts.

  But with her? He liked it. Especially when she blew a teensy-tiny bubble, only to pop it with the edge of her blunt human teeth.

  Normally, he would cringe at the reminder that his teeth didn’t look like that anymore. Every time she flashed hers, though, whether a coy smile his way or when she popped her gum, all Adam could think about was how it would feel to have those teeth nibbling on him.

  Then, more times than he could count as he walked her home, he inevitably started to fantasize about what it would be like to get his teeth in her.

  And that wasn’t the only part of his wayward, out of control anatomy that eagerly wanted to get inside of this woman.

  He’d been a Nightwalker for almost six months now. In all that time, his attraction to anything female had been in the toilet. Not only that, but as much as he struggled with the thirst, he never honestly thought about tapping a donor straight from the vein. Maybe because a part of him could pretend he wasn’t truly a turned vampire until he acted like a parasite and sucked on a donor.

  Or maybe because he had never found someone who tempted him as much as Tabitha did.

  He glanced over at her. It was the same woman he rescued more than two months ago; he was sure about that. Then why did she keep saying that she was new to town? He had definitely seen her in Grayson before, back at the end of March.

  Was she just visiting?

  And, more importantly, why was she acting like she had never seen him before, either?

  “Hey, um… whatcha thinking about there, champ?”

  That nickname.

  He couldn’t fucking explain why it got to him. Like it was a taunt or a dare. Her pretty brown eyes seemed to light up every time she tossed it at him which, so far, was three.

  And, Jesus, he was keeping count.

  He didn’t know what came over him. Deep down, he was sure she didn’t mean for it to happen. But he was hot and he was thirsty and he’d reached the last of his control.

  So when Tabitha tilted her head just so, his silver gaze zeroed in on the column of her throat.

  Adam crossed the room in an instant. One second he was standing next to the couch. The next? He’d flown in front of Tabitha, gripping her arms carefully as he lifted her up to her tippy-toes.

  Her head was still tilted. Her throat bared.

  There was no time for her to react before Adam did it.

  He bit her.

  Tabby had been bitten before. Too many times to count, actually. As a slayer, it was an occupational hazard.

  The thing was, any vamp who got their fangs in her throat was, you know, actively trying to end her before she had the chance to end them. They weren’t too concerned with making it feel good for her unless they were murderous and sadistic.

  But this guy?

  Holy shit.

  As he took deep pulls at her throat, swallowing her blood as if he couldn’t get enough, Tabby felt herself growing hot. Growing wet. Pleasure started to form in the pit of her stomach, tightening, tightening until she felt like she was about to explode from the sensation. Her hands immediately shot out, grabbing Adam by the front of his shirt. Training told her to shove him away, while the feminine core of her shouted at her to tug him close.

  She was deceptively strong and, well, the vamp didn’t offer any resistance as she yanked him near her. Since she wasn’t trying to get away from him—she wasn’t trying to stop him from drinking her—Adam kept his mouth in place, his fangs digging into her throat.

  It felt so damn good.

  Still clutching his shirt tightly between her fists, Tabby jumped up, wrapping her legs around his waist. Adam widened his stance, giving her something to hold onto as she pressed her hot and aching pussy against his lower belly. She dipped, gasping when she came into contact with a bulge that could only be one thing.

  His erection caused Tabby to come slamming back to earth. What the hell was wrong with her? The Nightwalker male was getting off on draining her and she was seconds away from climaxing while she let him.

  She went cold, like someone had dumped ice water over her head. Adam was pure sexual heat, moaning against her throat, while she stood there like a moron, all but begging him to take her.

  And she didn’t even mean her blood.

  Something told her that he wasn’t trying to drink her to death. Whatever was happening between them while he continued to draw on her vein, it felt so amazing that, for the first time ever, Tabby thought she might understand why Donors got addicted to this sensation. But Adam wasn’t stopping and now that she’d lost her budding orgasm, she couldn’t help but notice how lightheaded she was.

  It took too much effort to unfold her fingers. Once she had, she flattened her palms, pressing against his chest. He didn’t budge. She put all of her energy into it while shaking her head just enough to catch his attention without the threat of his chewing her neck open.

  It never even occurred to Tabby to reach for her dagger. Even as he continued to latch onto her, her heart racing, sending the blood straight to him in some kind of twisted offering, Tabby left her hands against his chest.

  And, suddenly, it was over.

  As soon as he withdrew his fangs, Adam backed up, nearly flying in his haste to get away from her. During his bite, he must’ve lost his shades. His strangely pale eyes went dark with some kind of surprised emotion. Tabby was getting better and better at reading the Nightwalker. She thought it was a mixture of…

  Lust?

  Shame?

  Yeah. Probably a little of both.

  Tabby slapped her hand over her neck. She could feel the warmth of Adam’s lips still pressed to her skin even though he was halfway across the room from her.

  “You bit me,” she accused.

  There was a throb in her voice that matched the throb in her pussy. Now that she wasn’t facing certain death by exsanguination, she had to admit that she’d never been this turned on before in her life. The only thing that made it worse—besides the trickle of blood she could feel dripping slowly down her neck—was the realization that he obviously hadn’t meant for any of that to happen.

  Adam’s eyes grew even wider. Splatters of blood dotted his strong chin, welling in the corner of his mouth. His fangs seemed longer than they were.

  His erection was a tent pulsing against his loose sweatpants.

  “I… I’ve never bitten anyone before.”

  Yeah. No shit. Even a fledgling vamp knew how to take from their donor without leaving any evidence of their theft behind.

  “Shit— I… I’m so sorry. I never should’ve…” His hands extended, his claws reaching toward her, Adam’s gaze locked on her neck. “Are you okay?”

  Tabby kept her hand wrapped around her throat. “Yeah.”

  “Let me see
.”

  “No.”

  Another curse under his breath. “It was an accident—”

  “Yeah. I figured.”

  “Tabitha—”

  “Tabby.”

  “Let me help. I used to be a cop. I’ve got some first aid training.”

  “Don’t worry about it, champ. I got it.”

  As she stepped back, widening the gap between them, Tabby reached into her back pocket with her free hand. She had to have one in there—ah, yes. Without breaking their stare, she showed Adam the patch in her hand before slapping it against her thigh. With enough force, the patch cracked and activated.

  She peeled the liner with her teeth, then slapped the patch on her neck. She moved so quickly, there was no way that Adam could catch sight of his puncture wounds.

  It was better that way. Something warned Tabby that the Nightwalker wouldn’t be able to stomach seeing the mess he made of her flesh.

  Once the patch was in place, she raised her eyebrows before wiping her bloody palm on her jeans.

  “I’m a slayer,” she told him with a perky smile. “So do I.”

  5

  It didn’t hit Tabby what she’d done until long after she saw the back of Adam Wright.

  She’d told him she was a slayer. No pretense, no hemming, no hawing, just opened her trap and put it out there.

  Her uncle was going to kill her.

  The Slayer’s Code made it clear. Keeping the gig secret was the number one rule—well, number two, really, since number one said that all slayers must eliminate every threat they came across. In Boone’s eyes, a Nightwalker was a threat. She should’ve taken him down long before he bit her.

  Looks like she broke two of the rules.

  Lovely.

  He was a cop, though, huh? Adam? For some reason, that made her feel a little better about everything. Slayers were kind of like cops, too.

  And, okay, she was trying to rationalize the magnitude of what she had done…

  She told him. She told a Nightwalker that she was a slayer.

  And, to her surprise, he didn’t even seem to react at all. Tabby had been expecting a look of horror at the very least, or for him to make his excuses and bolt like he did the last time they met. Which Adam eventually did, but she could tell that that had less to do with her confession and more to do with the bulge in his sweatpants he couldn’t even begin to hide.

  It still amazed her that she’d needed to tell him at all. Humans were oblivious, most paranormals didn’t know the difference between a slayer and a Normie, but Nightwalkers? The turned vampires always could tell that she was different. That she was a threat.

  Not Adam Wright.

  He didn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t have stopped at one bite—or held back when she wiggled, letting him know he was taking too much of her blood.

  He would’ve kept on going until she was drained.

  Or worse.

  But he didn’t. And then she went on to tell him she was a slayer.

  Her father had made that mistake, too. When Tabby was barely a year old, her father—who had married into the job and, like Tab, never really understood why the secrecy was so important—let slip his business to the wrong people. They were human, but that didn’t matter. She’d learned early on that humans could be just as evil as damaged Paras.

  Regardless of who spread the secret, though, it was a Nightwalker duo who stalked and tortured Mike and Elisa Winslow, leaving them for dead—and Tabby an orphan.

  Uncle Boone never let her forget it.

  You would think the tragedy of her parents’ deaths would entice her to keep her mouth shut. In some ways, it did. But it wasn’t like that Nightwalker was the only person Tabby had ever told. Like father, like daughter, she guessed, because she found it impossible to keep the secret a hundred percent of the time.

  Some friends knew, old boyfriends, even the woman who lived across the street from headquarters. They knew.

  It just… paranormals weren’t supposed to know. And if they found out? It was Tabby’s job to silence them. Which she most definitely neglected to do when Adam apologized one last time about his loss of control before fleeing from her apartment, his head most decidedly still on his shoulders.

  He bit her neck. Tabby just hoped that the Nightwalker didn’t turn around and bite her in the ass.

  The way she saw it, unless he went out and blabbed, no one needed to know that she broke the biggest rule in the Slayer’s Code.

  Besides, it wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again.

  Right?

  Tabby was just about to head out on her hunt the next night when the obnoxious banging started at her door.

  This time, she didn’t even bother reaching for Venice. She already had a pretty good guess who was out there.

  Eddie Daniels was a smart one. Knowing she was a slayer who specialized in hunting Nightwalkers, Tabby ran on the graveyard shift. If he wanted to make sure he got her when she was home, he had to show up early.

  Either that, or he was watching her. From what she knew about her uncle’s protégé, she was banking on that last part, especially since she’d begun to suspect that he didn’t head back to HQ the night before like he was supposed to.

  Which meant that Boone had probably okayed this more aggressive push for him to be her new partner.

  At least her uncle got one thing right. Her last partner had been a hound dog. From the way Eddie looked her over when she gave in and opened the door… oh, yeah. The handsome slayer was every inch a dog.

  Too bad she didn’t have half as much affection for him than she did old Rosie.

  “Eddie. You’re back.”

  “Miss me, Tab?”

  “I’ll miss you when you’re gone,” she said sweetly. “So why don’t you get going and I can get started on that?”

  Figuring he’d take the hint that she wasn’t in the mood for one of his visits, Tabby started to close the door, resigning herself to a phone call from her uncle in the not-so-distant future. What she didn’t expect? Was Eddie shoving his boot in the door, blocking her from closing it all of the way before he forced his way into the apartment.

  “Eddie! What are you doing?”

  “What’s on your neck? You’ve got a patch on already? What the hell for? I thought I caught you on the way out.”

  She slapped at his hand as he reached for her, her belly dropping to her Keds as she realized what he’d just seen. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Leave it alone.”

  Eddie was a big guy who didn’t hesitate to use his strength against her when he thought he was doing it for the best. Grabbing her by the wrist, he tugged her so that she was in reaching distance before gently easing the magic-aid from her throat.

  “Shit. You were bitten?”

  Damn it. How could she have forgotten to remove the patch before she went to bed early this morning?

  Simple. Because she’d been eager to fall asleep and fantasize about a Nightwalker.

  Oh, boy.

  She shrugged. “It happens.”

  “It looks pretty fresh. You go out on a hunt last night? Find a target?”

  Tabby pressed the patch back in place, trying not to dwell on what he said. Fresh? It had been at least fourteen hours since Adam bit her. The magic-aid should’ve cleared it up by now.

  It had every other time she’d been tagged by a vamp.

  She didn’t even want to begin to guess why it hadn’t with Adam’s bite.

  “Go out every night, Eddie,” she said flippantly, as if she wasn’t worried. Maybe if she fooled him, she could fool herself, too. “That’s our job, isn’t it?”

  Job, ha. If it was a job, she would actually get a paycheck and benefits instead of living off of her uncle’s wealth and the remains of the trust fund her parents’ untimely deaths left her.

  He narrowed his gaze, seeing right through her. “Male vamp or female?”

  “Huh?”

  “The vamp who bit you. Male or female?”


  She thought of Adam’s brawn, his stocky, muscular build, his big hands, and the even bigger bulge that tented those glorious sweatpants.

  “It was a guy.”

  “You finished him, though, right? He got your blood, but you got his head.”

  When Tabby didn’t answer him straight away, Eddie’s brow furrowed. “Don’t tell me that you let some parasite get away with your blood. It only takes three exchanges—”

  “Eddie. I know—”

  “—and you’re a pretty girl, Tab.” Eddie finally tore his attention from the patch on her throat as his worried expression tightened, taking her in from top to bottom. His eyes grew heavy-lidded as he lingered on her chest. “One bite and the bastard’s got a foot in the door, you know that.”

  That was rich, coming from the asshole who just shoved his way into her apartment.

  “I said I know, didn’t I?”

  Every slayer knew the risks. If they were foolish enough to get snagged by a Nightwalker, the biggest worry was whether they planned on draining you completely or only half way; they always attacked a slayer.

  After that, there was the whole “being turned” to contend with. In order to change, all it took was a vamp sharing enough of their blood with you before waiting for you to die to see if the turning took; most of the time a draining followed since most Nightwalkers—despite being nearly immortal—weren’t the patient type.

  Then, of course, there was the risk of being addicted to the high and the pleasure from the vamp’s dark kiss turning a human from a donor—a willing vein—to a Donor—a notorious blood junkie who would do anything for a fix.

  But that wasn’t all and Tabby knew it. Eddie wasn’t kidding when he said that Adam would have one foot in the door. Three blood exchanges: the vamp drinking first, then the human, and finally the vamp again while in the middle of something known as claiming sex… that was how a Nightwalker claimed their betrothed and cemented the bond.